• Assassin’s Creed 3 came out of hiding with a ton of screenshots and concept art, as well as information on the protagonist, a Native American who calls himself Connor. A trailer has been released for the game, and it releases on October 30th of this year.
• BioShock Infinite also gave us a release date, October 16th. This is a game I’m personally excited for after not really hearing anything about it the past few months. I really enjoy the series and can’t wait to see what they do in this installment.
• A good number of you are probably playing Mass Effect 3 right now. Submit an opinion of the game once you’re done!
• just found out, a trailer for Halo 4 was released. Huh okay. Gotta go check that out!

I honestly thought the next installment was going to be Gray Version, but whatever. I’m still playing White Version and it’s good, so let’s see how the new versions compare. And lemme say, the Zekrom/Kyurem and Reshiram/Kyurem fusions (?) are not too bad.

For the hell of it, I decided to go back and play a bunch of older but very popular games. These are literally my initial thoughts as I played the games.

Rage

AHHHH WHAT DO I DO I’M GETTING SHOT WHY CAN’T I JUMP LIKE THEM HOW DO YOU CROUCH

(5 minutes later) 

Headshot! Multi-kill on a grenade, yeah! FUCK I’M DOWN

Halo: Reach

This is pretty cool, where’s the sniper rifle, gimme a sniper rifle. Wait what is that, it has an Energy Swo-FUCK. Ok, let’s try flanking him, throw a few sticki- DAMMIT. IF ONLY I HAD A SNIPER RIFLE

Battlefield 3

Shit, I am on top of a speeding train that is half-exploded, STOP SHOOTING AT ME. Finally, a gun that’s not a pistol. AH FUCK BUTTON PROMPT SHIT MISSED IT. Yeah a better gun! Wait who’s he WELP I’M DEAD

Portal

Ok, so how in the hell…OHHHHH OKAY.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

This is pretty fun! The landscape’s awesome, no zombies anywhere except my wife and son, just gonna go over this hill and okay there’s an entire horde and I have no ammo.

BioShock

You want me to go INTO the dark and flooding hallway? How about NO. Would I kindly? I guess so, okay. Not like I have a choice, really.

When I first got Arkham City, I was very hesitant to play it, mainly because I knew the game was so friggin’ expansive and that there was so much to do. Arkham Asylum was considered by many the best open-world Batman game for the time, and Arkham City literally took everything that worked in Asylum and added onto it and made it even better. It’s like Rocksteady made us the greatest maple bacon ever, then caramelized it by baking it in maple syrup and said, “Here you go, enjoy.” (By the way, I have had bacon made this way and it is delicious.)

Batman: Arkham City takes place sometime after the events of Arkham Asylum. Warden Sharp (after becoming mayor by taking credit for Batman stopping the Joker at the end of Asylum) buys a huge section of Gotham and turns it into a prison for Arkham and Blackgate Penitentiary inmates. Bruce Wayne is opposed to this and speaks against it. Consequently, Hugo Strange kidnaps him and throws him into Arkham City. Wayne learns about something called Protocol 10 and aims to stop it, assuming Joker has something to do with it. Speaking of, Joker’s not feeling so well after his Titan-fueled rampage at the end of Asylum, and he and Harley Quinn are desperately looking for a cure, causing havoc and mayhem all over the place.

I’m going to stop there about the plot in fear of possibly spoiling the game for those of you who played. The above happens pretty much within the first 15-20 minutes, so there’s not much to spoil. The plot becomes a lot more in-depth and engaging as the game goes on, and the twists keep you immersed and guessing. Rocksteady does a great job revealing the plot bit by bit and leading up to the ending, and appearances by iconic villains such as Two-Face, Catwoman, Riddler, just to name a few, as well as other characters from the Batman mythos.

Gameplay is literally the same as Asylum’s: spam the X and Y buttons as you jump from one thug to the next, distributing the hurt as necessary. You can use your Batclaw, Batarang, and the other tools at your disposal to mix up the fights and rack up experience to unlock upgrades for your tools and Batsuit. Those are the head-on fights, however. Armed thugs require much more finesse and stealth to take out, so patience, silent takedowns, and inverted takedowns are your friends. The Riddler challenges from last game are back and in bigger force: with nearly 300 to find and/or solve, you’ll be a while. The side missions are intriguing as well, very diverse in style and all contribute something to the story.

There wasn’t much I disliked about Batman: Arkham City. A few fights seemed way too easy, not much of a boss/mini-boss fight. The Iceberg Lounge’s ice floor was very frustrating; if you stood up for something and moved just a bit, the ice would very nearly crack. Didn’t have any other problems, which means Rocksteady really polished the game enough to fix things. Now, the only place to go from here is up, but after such an expansive and action- and story-packed game, where else can they go? We just have to wait.

College has been a pain in my ass. I will post Arkham City soon, and Battlefield 3 may be the next review. Stay tuned!

Still kind of creeped out at the Joker’s little finale over the credits. I’ll be posting the review sometime this weekend. Stay tuned, Bats!

*I will try not to include spoilers for those of you who haven’t played, but no guarantees. So seriously, go play.*

Being an avid fan of the Assassin’s Creed series, I was deadset on getting Revelations. I couldn’t wait to see where Desmond Miles would find himself in his ancestor Ezio Auditore’s shoes (or, boots, rather), and I was desperate to figure out what the hell happened with Brotherhood’s ending. So popping the game into my 360 was kind of a big deal.

AC’s storyline is the best part of the series, possibly second to the freerunning skills. If you remember AC:B’s ending, there was a mention of “Put him back in the Animus!” Revelations starts off around there. Desmond has fallen into a coma after his encounter with the Apple, and he’s stuck on Animus Island. Occasionally Subject 16 (not just a number anymore!) comes by to talk to Desmond and offer a little insight: the Animus is having trouble differentiating between Desmond and Ezio, and every trip into Ezio’s memories tips that balance out of whack even more.

Speaking of Ezio, his storyline this game is interesting. Templars are trying to break into Altair’s library at Masyaf, and they need keys to do it. Naturally, Ezio has to get these keys before the Templars, so he travels to Constantinople and meets with the Assassins there to find the keys. Ezio meets new allies and enemies along the way, and even finds a love interest. There’s a few twists and turns, but it’s super-enjoyable.

Gameplay is basically the same as it was in Brotherhood: run around the sprawling city, climb up walls and towers, and find collectibles (Animus data fragments, used to unlock Desmond’s “memories”). It’s the same old formula, really. Now throw in the hookblade (watch out for the pointy end). The hookblade makes it super easy to get around the city rooftops (using the numerous ziplines everywhere) and climbing up to out-of-reach ledges are a breeze now (plus, the long jump you can do on a lamp instead of turning 90 degrees was a great mechanic). The game uses the hookblade automatically, so there’s no need to press a button to activate it or anything (unless you hold B to catch a ledge as you fall).

The hookblade is also a major component of combat. You can hook enemies and tumble over them, great for getting past a barricade. And of course, you can use it for some excellent killing blows (my favorite is you hook them, pull them close, stab with hidden blade, and then yank the hookblade away; you don’t see it, but I’m pretty sure a chunk of his sternum is gone). It replaces your second hidden blade (which you lost in the intro of the game) and works perfectly. You can also craft bombs to use, from cherry bombs to distract guards to smoke bombs for a sneaky getaway to splinter bombs to kill from afar. You find parts to make them all over the city of Constantinople, so you’re never really in short supply. There’s a massive amount of combinations for bombs, so get creative.

Two more cool additions. First are the Masyaf Keys themselves. When you collect them, they are records of Altair’s memories that you can relive. These parts were really cool because they showed us more on Altair and his life, and how being an Assassin affected his later years. The second was the “den defense.” Basic gist (same as Brotherhood’s Borgia Towers): recapture a den and make it your own and rebuild the town around it. However if your Templar awareness meter fills up, Templars attack your den, which results in you sprinting to that den to defend it. Revelations turns into a tower defense game for a bit as you place riflemen and archers on the rooftops to stop incoming Templars. It is really awesome and adds a bit of flavor.

As much as I loved Revelations, I hate to say it wasn’t completely perfect. The targeting system (LT on 360) was done away with, opting to auto-target, which I disliked a bit; I cannot tell you how many times I aimed at a Templar official to take him out only to have the targeting switch to a citizen a second before I shot my gun. The story did seem a bit short to me; I would’ve enjoyed a deeper-delving narrative. There were not that many opportunities to earn money, in my opinion, especially if buying the crossbow was a main goal of yours (as was mine), because most of it was spent on renovating shops and buying armor. I disliked the fact that you could only find bomb materials in chests; I finished the game with enough material to craft splinter bombs for a lifetime or two. Also, the ending (after Ezio’s farewell). Confused me and threw me for a loop.

I enjoyed playing Revelations, no doubt about it. Yes, it had some flaws that irked me a little, but overall it was an awesome game and worth buying. If you’re a big fan of the series, then go buy the game and play it right now. If you’re a casual gamer and looking for something to play, then get Revelations. It’ll make a fan out of you.

*edit* Apparently the targeting system wasn’t done away with, according to a friend of mine. For some reason mine just wasn’t working properly.

I’ll be writing the review in the next two days or so. Let me just say, the ending was pretty crazy. Be on the lookout for it!

Next game I’ll review most likely is Batman: Arkham City (once I finish it), so stay tuned for that. Thanks guys!

Turns out the rumors of Half-Life 3 are false. According to Chet Faliszek (writer for Half-Life and Left 4 Dead), it all amounts to the “community trolling the community.” Hopefully we’ll get more news on this as time goes on.

Hey guys! First review will be up sometime soon. It’ll be on Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. I’m somewhere about halfway through the game, so I’ll have completed it soon. I also just bought Batman: Arkham City yesterday, so that’ll most likely be my second review.

In the meantime, enjoy this video of Ezio Auditore taking a stroll in the mall.